fl 2065 
G7 B6 
opy 1 



/fade fa A*t^c^» 



^ {Z*??-h^Sl^<^ 



THE 



NEW NATIONAL GEAMMAK. 



EDWARD E. BOWEN, M.A., 

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND ASSISTANT -MASTER AT 
HARROW SCHOOL. 



[Printed for private Circulation. ,] 






205449 
.'13 



THE NEW NATIONAL GRAMMAR 



More than a year ago the Head Masters of the Public Schools 
which came under the survey of the Commission met for the 
purpose of endeavouring to carry into effect one of the Com* 
missioners 5 suggestions, that of some common agreement upon a 
Public School Grammar. The question was an important one, so 
important indeed that the Greek Grammar has been consigned 
to the future. The discussion upon the Latin was limited by 
two decisions which were very soon arrived at, so far as the 
existing information, supplemented by conjecture, leads us to 
infer. One was, that it was expedient to adopt as a basis some 
already existing text-book : the other, that it was not expedient 
to take any advice on the subject from other persons, either of 
distinguished scholarship or of much experience in the teaching 
of grammar. 

It will be obvious that the adoption of the first of these two 
decisions implies one of the following alternatives : — either that 
the attainment of a very good Grammar is not important com- 
pared with the necessity of having some Grammar at once ; or, 
that there are strong a priori grounds for believing that the basis 
of some very good Grammar must exist at the present moment. 

In favour of the second there is, perhaps, more to be said. 
For it may be urged that time, again, was of importance, or 
that the scholarship and experience already present was suf- 



ficient, or that it could not be readily found, or that in some 
cases private advice may have been taken. Or, lastly — which 
was probably the real ground — it may have been thought that 
if there was the disadvantage of a limited experience, there was 
the advantage of a distinct responsibility. 

These decisions having been arrived at, it only remained to 
examine the existing Latin Grammars, and adopt one. As was 
perhaps, under the circumstances, not unnatural, the Grammar 
of Dr. Kennedy was chosen. It has been somewhat remodelled 
from its then existing form, and, subject to a few more altera- 
tions, chiefly in type and arrangement, the first part of it at all 
events, the " Primer," has been definitely adopted.* The assistant 
masters of the various schools will be requested to teach it to 
their forms, and the authorities of the other schools will virtually 
be forced to receive it. 

There were many persons who, at the time when the scheme 
was proposed, doubted whether it really is at the present moment 
desirable to stereotype one Grammar for permanent national 
use. They looked to past attempts of the kind, and found them 
not wholly satisfactory. Tfcey observed the present activity in 
the pursuit of such studies, and hesitated to pronounce that a 
time of rapid progress is the best time to crystallise a system. 
They remarked in how many ways the opinions of a scholar of 
to-day differ from those of thirty years ago, and felt some mis- 
givings whether the scholars of thirty years hence will yield 
implicit obedience to the laws of to-day's enactment. They 
noticed the rapid progress, above all, in philological inquiries, 
and wondered how far it was likely that the compiler of a 
National Grammar would be able to satisfy the demands of philo- 
logical science. Such views as these are but little dependent on 



* Since the above was in type, Dr. Kennedy has explained to the writer that the 
Primer as published is the book of the nine Headmasters prepared by them for the 
nine schools. 



the discretion with which the choice of text-books was made. 
At this moment it is impossible to pronounce whether they were 
or were not, the views of a small minority of teachers. 

Be this as it may, the compulsory adoption of this particular 
Grammar is an extremely important matter. By the courtesy of 
Dr. Kennedy, the assistant classical masters at the schools have 
received specimen copies of two books, the Primer, which is 
distinctly adopted, and the Grammar, which is not yet absolutely 
received as part of the English educational system. I have reason 
to think that an opinion unfavourable to both of them is very 
widely spread. It is spread at all events almost as widely as the 
horizon of my own personal knowledge. It is from a very strong 
impression that this opinion, if it exists, ought to be made known, 
that I write these few remarks. I should be very sorry if anything 
that I say in disrespect of the Grammar itself should in any way 
be considered as implying disrespect to its author, who, though 
I still disagree with him wholly, knows ten times as much gram- 
mar as I do. 

The chief part of what I have to say will consist of remarks 
on " The Public School Latin Primer," and on the teaching of 
grammar in general. As regards the " Primer," I wish to call 
attention to details only as far as they are either samples of their 
kind, or seem to involve a principle. In the first page, for instance, 
it might perhaps be urged that the statement that " a syllable is 
short if its vowel is short," is contrary to the frequent evidence 
of the senses. But such cavillings as these, which involve nothing 
beyond themselves, I shall endeavour to omit. 

By Grammar two things are generally meant, quite different 
from one another. One relates to the inflexion of words, the 
other to their combination : and unfortunately these two branches 
of learning are too often mixed up together. A certain amount 
of acquaintance with the rudiments of accidence is indispensable 
to every learner. A boy cannot begin to construe till he has some 
idea how dominus and amo are declined. But no amount of 



knowledge of syntax need be acquired as a preliminary to easy 
translation. It is true, certain ideas of concord and of govern- 
ment are present to the mind of every child who reads " bona 
mater amat me." But these ideas are so primary, so simple, so 
fixed, indeed, in the mind from the use of the English pronoun, 
that it would be hardly fair to conceive them as already a code of 
syntax. 

Now, I will begin by saying that the universal tendency of the 
best modern theories of education is towards teaching largely by 
experiment. To ascend from example to abstraction is the true 
rule of instructing as well as of investigating, I will go further, 
and say that in this particular question of classical teaching I 
know hardly a single scholar who is not of opinion that the com- 
mon system of teaching syntax by abstract rules conveyed in 
a difficult style, and in a tongue at first unintelligible to the 
learner, is a grievous waste of time, and, what is worse, a waste 
of the learner's energy and readiness to be taught. What is true 
of syntax is true of the over-development of accidence. It is a 
waste of time for a boy to learn how a word is declined, with 
which he will never meet for the first two or three years of his 
progress. 

Grammar, in the sense of a real analysis of language, should 
be an end, not a means. When a boy has well learnt how to 
translate a Latin author, what the force of the words and sen- 
tences is, and what is their corresponding value in his own 
tongue, he is then ripe for approaching the science of Grammar. 
M. Jourdain talked prose just as well, though he had never 
known the fact, and a student of Latin may have a perfect 
mastery of the " Prolative Relation" without ever having heard 
its name in the pages of Kennedy. It is certainly true that the 
analytic faculties are quite worth cultivating. But so are the 
faculties of domestic administration and forensic oratory. One 
cannot begin everything at once. What I contend is, that 
valuable as the analysis of language is, it is best studied in a 



tongue tolerably well known than in one almost wholly un- 
known. Indeed, it is well open to question, whether the 
analysis of argument is not quite as useful a study ; and if it 
were possible to make school teaching encyclopaedic, I should be 
very glad to see the elements of logic taught to the sixth form at 
Harrow. One limitation, however, I could make. I could not 
endeavour to teach a boy the connexion of arguments if he had 
never yet conducted a discussion on any point whatever in his 
life. 

If I knew a tutor whose chief anxiety it was to render a pupil 
able to construe a Latin author in as short a time as possible, 
and who was obliged to start from the beginning, I would give 
him this advice : " Teach," I would say, " a specimen or two of 
each declension, and the most important tenses of the conjuga- 
tions. The others may be learnt gradually, and may be pointed 
out from time to time. Then at once plunge your pupil into 
construing. Go through the Delectus from end to end. Tell 
him every word he wants to know if he cannot find it out 
immediately; or even — but this may be a heresy — tell it him 
without his looking it out at alL* Begin some easy author, 
giving all possible help, and leaving out any construction that is 
too hard. Work in everything with a view to ease, and pro- 
vided that you can get through very much, do not be over 
particular about the very well. In this way read chapter after 
chapter, pointing out, explaining, telling, never allowing time to 
be wasted in mistakes or in fruitless searches. The accidence 
will gradually teach itself, the syntax will explain itself without 
being taught. Your pupil will get through five times as much 



* It is a heresy to which I am rather partial. The time spent in turning over 
the pages of a dictionary is, oftener than not, time wasted. In a Homer lesson of 
sixteen lines an industrious boy will sometimes look out as many as forty words. 
He will spend more than twenty minutes, that is, on mere manual and distasteful 
labour. I should be very glad if a great portion of this educational treadmill could 
be got rid of. 



as his friend who is toiling over his New National Grammar ; he 
will build his own rules for himself, and, by means of your help, 
he will notice the unusual words and constructions, because he 
will come across them so often. As his mind is gradually more 
able to understand a hard sentence in English, it will similarly 
be competent to attack a more obscure one in Latin. He may 
now be told what the " Prolative Kelation " is, because he has 
often used it, and is familiar with it. As for the difficulties 
which torture and distress so often the minds of boys who learn 
Latin with no help but a code of rules which they cannot hope 
to understand, your pupil, like the American who had crossed 
the Alps, will " guess he did pass some risin' ground ! " 

I fancy I hear some educationist of the old school say, at this 
point, " I would not take your education at the price." I 
cordially agree with the spirit of the sentiment. But what I 
have proposed is not an education. It seems to me to be the 
quickest and easiest way of teaching a boy to understand a Latin 
writer, and it will be generally allowed that this is a success 
worth having. I do not disparage the virtues of perseverance 
and of resistance to difficulties, nor the intellectual merits of the 
exercise of a critical ingenuity. But I am of opinion that the 
course of the most facile curriculum gives already plenty of scope 
for both. Although the business of the teacher may well be, 
like that of the sons of Vulcan of old, to make smooth ways for 
the feet, and render the rough places tame, yet the most royal 
road to learning will never be without its uphills. But if in any 
way it be said or implied that there is an advantage in leaving 
difficulties because they will have to be overcome, — that intel- 
lectual temptations must be kept in order to strengthen the 
intellect, — that a difficult method is in any conceivable degree 
superior to an easy one, I at once dissent toto ccelo. Let us be 
prepared to abandon the barbarous doctrine that anything that is 
unpleasant can ever be, in virtue of its unpleasantness, good. It 
is of a piece with those other moral barbarisms which used to 



make boys endure needless restraint because restraint is good for 
boys, or compelled them to bear needless hardships because it is 
of hardships that life is full. We shall never have reason to con- 
gratulate ourselves on a perfect method of education till boys can 
habitually come up to their lessons with as little repugnance as 
that with which a man sits down to his work. 

I wish it could be more generally known how stupid a stupid 
boy is. If Grammar writers only knew how difficult, often how 
impossible, it is, to convey an idea in an abstract form into the 
mind of a pupil, even of an average intelligence, they would be 
more sparing of their hard phrases and harder rules. In the 
new Latin Primer a boy is supposed to learn in his very first 
lesson on the noun substantive that the genitive case is the case 
of the " proprietor," as in the words " cujusdonum?" — " whose 
gift?" " viri" — "a man's gift;" where a man represents the pro- 
prietor. Is it really necessary that this idea, which even now a 
common mind has some little reluctance to accept, should be 
laboriously driven into the untrained intelligence of a mere child ? 
Why not tell him at once that ' ' viri " means " of a man." If it 
is true that, in the language of Voltaire, a boy of four understands 
the meaning of ownership as well as a man of sixty, the philo- 
sophic conception which Dr. Kennedy is anxious to implant will 
not be long in revealing itself in Latin as well as in English. 1 
believe that, to a boy of mere ordinary ability, this philosophy of 
Grammar is as hard to grasp as the Binomial Theorem to a senior 
classic beginning algebra. And if it is difficult, it is repulsive as 
well. A boy may well hate his books when he sees such a 
mountain of toil before him. On page 19 of the Primer, I find 
the names of ten different kinds of pronouns. On page 23 is the 
heading, " Periphrastic Conjugation/' Half of page 31 is devoted 
to " Semiconsonant Verbs;" half of 37 to "Quasi-passive and 
Semi-deponent Verbs." This in a Primer to be taught to classes 
of boys, of one half of whom we know that it is only with hard 
and long labour that they can be brought to master the easiest 



8 

and commonest formulae ! When it comes to the more difficult 
syntax, it is really not necessary to push the examination to detail. 
I do not know to what kind of learners the larger Grammar is 
intended to be taught; but I am certain that I know more Latin 
than most of the sixth form at Harrow, and that there are a 
multitude of observations in that laborious work which I can 
only faintly and diffidently hope that, after a school and college 
education, I am beginning to understand myself. 

There can of course be no doubt whatever that Dr. Kennedy's 
accidence, whether encumbered by unnecessary matter or not, is 
very much superior in intrinsic merit to the old Eton Grammar. 
It is for the most part only to what seem encumbrances or useless 
philosophies that any objection lies. But it is difficult to conceive 
a Grammar as really intended for boys beginning Latin, which 
gives five specimens of the first declension, and eight of the second ; 
the first, too, including the declension of "Dea" for the purpose 
of including the unusual form " Deabus." The third declension 
positively includes no less than twenty-seven forms ! In the verbs 
Dr. Kennedy has attempted a compromise between conserva- 
tism and philosophy ; in order not to break off entirely from 
antiquity, he subordinates arithmetical order to strict grammatical 
propriety, and puts his third conjugation after his fourth. In 
nomenclature, again, there are one or two half measures, of which 
it is difficult to see the value. Dr. Kennedy talks of the infinitive 
mood as other people do in most parts of the book. But when the 
conjugation of the verb comes on, at once we have the heading, 
" The Verb Infinite." Now it would be hard to say what the advan- 
tage of " Infinite " over " Infinitive "is, considering that whatever 
the idea involved in the word "amare " may be, the word "amare " 
itself is not infinite in any sense, and is only of, or belonging to, 
an infinite idea, — and that there is no proposal in the Primer to 
speak of the genite, date, and accusate. But the change only 
shows the tendency of the teaching. The author wishes to group 
"audiens" and "aadire" under one heading, and " infinitive" 



being already in use, he invents the inappropriate "infinite." 
The conjunction of the two may be philosophical: for argument's 
sake we may grant that it is. But does Dr. Kennedy mean to 
say that when these two sentences are written down — " I, hating 
you, strike you;" and u To hate is pleasant," — any single boy in 
any school, of the age of ten or twelve, can see a connection 
between them? Granted that it is not wrong to group them. Is 
it right to burden a child's memory by coining a questionable 
word for the purpose? 

One would have supposed that at any rate Dr. Kennedy could 
not well advance further in this direction than the coining of a 
word. In page 5 of the Primer he actually coins a letter ! The 
ordinary mind gazes upon such an undertaking with a senti- 
ment approaching to awe. The sign, he tells us in a note, 
stands for "any mute or liquid.' 5 Placed before «m, it is 
equivalent to a combination of imm, diun, turn, and the rest. 
The force of Grammar can no further go. But, unless study 
conducted on Dr. Kennedy's principle is to have the fruit of 
developing fresh vocal ligaments for his consonant, it is difficult 
to understand how on earth the pupil is to pronounce it. 

It is understood that the " memorial lines " form an integral part 
of the teaching of the new Grammar. The only ray of consola- 
tion which seems to present itself in the perusal of this gloomy 
poetry arises from the recollection that masters will not have to 
learn it as well as boys. The Grammatic Muse declares herself in 
the second page of the Primer, before even the parts of speech 
are unfolded, and thus she addresses the infant mind: — 

(1) The guttural mutes, c, g (k, q) 
May be entitled K-sounds too. 

This is the beginning of the second lesson that a young gentle- 
man of some nine summers is supposed to learn. In the same 
breath, almost, he will read — and commit to memory, let us 
hope — 



10 

(2) In Latin sounds we vainly seek 
For aspirates, like those in Greek. 

Certainly the young gentleman seeks for nothing of the kind. 
All that he knows of Greek from his elder brother is that it is a 
language so amazingly hard that even its accidence is obliged 
to be written in Latin. A few lines more, and we come to a 
metrical dissertation upon^* and u: — 

Old Eome had neither j nor u ; 
The sounds, but not the signs, it knew; 
Till y came in to mark the sound 
Which in i-consonant was found; 
And with it w, that all might see 
The yowel-power contained in v. 

" Old Rome" seems at first sight a little disrespectful, though the 
pupil may, perhaps, be made to understand that it means the more 
ancient Romans. But passing over the form and sound of the 
lines, and looking at their signification, I venture to surmise that 
there is not one single person in the country, besides Dr. Kennedy 
and a portion of the committee of head masters, who would give it 
as their opinion that these ideas, as conveyed in a poem to be com- 
mitted to memory, are the most necessary furniture of a mind 
which has had as yet exactly one lesson in Latin. 

The next page declares that there are three parts of speech, 
nouns, verbs, and particles ; and the muse is called in to subdivide 
them, in a poem of thirty-two lines. And here begins to show 
itself one of the very worst faults of this verse system. A boy 
learns 

The Interjection feeling notes ; 
(as though the interjection was learning to play the piano — ) 

As ecce natat, "lo it floats." 
Now we know how impossible it is to prevent a boy from learn- 
ing anything rhythmical in a very marked sing-song. What 
then will be his opinion of the quantity of the first syllable of 



11 

natat? Or, again, in the following four lines, how is he to make 
up his mind whether canunt is long or short, if he has not the 
book before him? 

Verbs tell of somewhat happening, 
As, homines canunt) men sing. 
The subject homines we state, 
And canunt as the Predicate. 
Another instance if we try, 
Mors est propinqua, death is nigh, 
Mors subject, est is copula, 
Propinqua complement, we say: 
And here the Predicate is blent 
Of Copula and Complement. 

I could not help continuing the passage, as it seemed to have 
something of the run of Sir Walter Scott. Classical education 
is intended to improve the taste. But with regard to the 
first line, let me ask three questions. To a youthful mind, 
do not persons and books tell of things happening just as much 
as verbs do ? Do not verbs tell of things happening, supposing 
that they do so at all, in one language as well as another ? What 
does it matter to a young boy what a verb tells of, so long as he 
sees what it is ? 

The anomalous nouns are not dealt with at great length ; though 
it is judiciously added — to be learnt by heart with the rest — that 
Of such examples many more Enrich the careful reader's store. 
But in the gender of nouns Pegasus fairly runs riot. Page 
follows page of substantives tortured ingeniously into rhyme, and 
labelled as masculine or feminine, though how the masculine ones 
are to be sorted from the feminine, when the pupil has learnt the 
canto through, it is quite impossible to say. The list of common 
nouns consists of thirty-nine ; and I think I have some boys in 
my pupil-room who, if they once see that " miles " is common, 
will soon show up " fortissima miles" to end their hexameter 
lines. But when twenty-nine nouns follow soon after, which are 



12 

specially masculine, and which run in the same metre and style 
as the first, is it likely that they will be kept separate in the 
learner's memory ? The latter, it may be remarked, are all ex- 
ceptions, and the rule itself is the following elegant and per- 
spicuous one : — 

Third-nouns Feminine we class 
Ending is, x, aus, and as, 
S to consonant appended, 
Es in flexion unextended. 

This, perhaps, is more like the " Lyra Innocentium ;" but it is 
harder. 

The memorial lines fortunately do not continue throughout the 
accidence ; and it may be again repeated that with the skeleton of 
the book — if there were but one-fifth part of it to be put into the 
hands of young boys — I do not wish to find fault. Nothing 
could be better than the tables of irregular verbs on pages 52, 
&c, which, fortunately, are not given in verse. I pass to the 
Syntax. 

It is here that I most cordially dissent from the tradition of 
the elders. And it is here that I believe I shall gain the most 
cordial assent of the greater number of the teachers in our public 
schools. I doubt whether any instrument of educational torture 
within the memory of the present generation can compare with 
the expedient of compelling boys to learn, in Latin, a quantity 
of rules, of which it is certain that they will not understand a 
great number, that they will remember still less, and practise 
least of all. Take the first concord : — do we ourselves, when we 
write Latin prose, ever say over the Latin words at each verb we 
come to ? Is the principle of concord fixed in our minds because we 
once learnt the rule in Latin, or because we have seen so many 
nominatives and verbs in our reading that the idea has become 
part of our nature ? So with the second. Show a boy when he 
does his first exercise, that adjectives have numbers, genders, and 
cases, which must be all attended to, and he will not need the 



13 

embarrassment of polyglot thought on the subject. A very few, 
perhaps, in English, might be admissible. Something is to be 
said for the old Fungor, fruor, &c. But the number of these, 
which, in reality, are but short lists, is barely half a dozen, and 
even these may be, with advantage, curtailed, Supersedeo cer- 
tainly governs an ablative, but the word is so rare that a student 
will not need the knowledge till he is of age to use his dictionary 
intelligently. However this may be, consider for a moment the 
value of the following : it will be found in § 121 of the "Syntaxis 
Memorialis Prima." 

Ablativns est casus rerum quae circumstant et adverbiali more 
limitant actionem, ut Causae, Instrument!, Modi, Conditionis, Qualitatis, 
Respectus, Pretii, Mensura?, Materiae, Originis. Definit etiam puncta 
Temporis et Loci. 

I try in vain to picture to myself the intellect of a rather stupid 
boy brought face to face, in any other way than by mere rote, 
with the mass of ideas thus presented to him. Ablativus re- 
spectus ! In all seriousness I ask myself whether since the 
creation of the world any person has been a jot the wiser from 
meditating on the ablative of respect. To parcel these things 
out in this fashion is a charming exercise for a mind which needs 
some practice in analysis. Of what other use can it be to any 
living soul? 

Here, again, are some specimens. Under the heading of the 
i( Infinite Verb " we have : — 

§ 150. Gerundii transitivi constructio Gerundiva fit, Objecto 
casum Gerundialem induente, Gerundivo numerum 
et genus Ohjecti. 

§ 151. (2.) Necessitatem significat attributiva constructio 
Gerundivi, in Verbis transitivis. 

It may be said that it is good mental training for a boy to be 
able to refer all his constructions and usages to an abstract or 



14 

general law. That he should be able to appreciate a general law- 
is, I grant, a good thing. But it should be a law which is 
clearly in his own mind founded upon a collection of instances; 
and if he rightly understands the instances, it will matter little in 
what terms he states the law. If he does not understand them, 
the law is worse than useless. Suppose that we are teaching 
history to a pupil. There are many examples to be seen, and 
many general laws to be drawn ; and it is possible to conceive of 
the laws as governing the instances, in the same way in which a 
teacher with the " Primer " in his hand might tell a boy that a 
particular usage was correct because of Kule §151. But would 
any one think of teaching the principles first? Should we make 
our pupil commit to memory, at the outset of his historical 
reading, a law declaring that a feudal tenure implies (or does 
not) a previous conception of a family, or that a colonial settle- 
ment prospers least (or most) when its centrifugal force is strong, 
and then wait till he has read Guizot and Mill to be able to put 
the rules to the text? What would be thought of a teacher of 
physiology, who should compel his victim to start with some such 
formula as this : — 

Omnes substantias edibiles, quales sunt panis, caro, poma, Reva- 
lenta Arabica, et similia, ipsae per se corpori alimento esse nequeunt, 
succumque, ut dicitur, quo maturius conficiantur, digestivum postu- 
lant. 

Perhaps the case might be put more strongly still; and it 
might be more truly analogous if such a rule were represented as 
even preparatory to the practical use of food. 

I cannot but feel that there is a serious side to this question. 
It is indispensable to good instruction that there should be con- 
fidence between teacher and taught. There is little likelihood 
that a set of boys will do their best to learn, if they do not think 
that their master is doing his best to teach them. If he has to 
spend his time and that of his form — and not only their time, but 



15 

their energies — in work which he knows to be useless to them at 
the early stage which they have reached, this confidence is gone 
at once. As it is, in the few subjects in which the matter taught 
is at times of little importance or of doubtful truth, we know 
how our own vigour relaxes, and whatever sympathy we have 
managed to awaken is destroyed. It will be a difficult trial, not 
only for the energy, but even for the conscience of a master, to 
attempt to incite activity on false pretences — to stimulate an 
intellectual zeal which will have to spend itself on crabjd rules 
and childish doggerel. To a fifth or sixth form pupil I can 
teach the usages of the predicate or the history of inflexion, 
and trust that I am doing him good. To instruct a boy of ten 
in anything beyond mere formulae, I should feel to be doing him 
a mischief. 

" What then/' it may be asked, " do you wish, after all ?" I 
reply that, for myself, I think a common Grammar unnecessary, 
because Grammar is already taught to very young boys too much, 
and a new liturgy may serve to enhance the worship we already 
pay to it. If it is to be made at all, I should wish it to consist 
of the minimum of accidence requisite for a boy beginning 
Latin. I would also have a scientific Grammar, analytical and 
philological, for elder students. This is not the opportunity to offer 
any opinion which of the several extant Latin Grammars either is 
or might be made the best for the purpose. But I can see no con- 
ceivable reason why each school should not choose its own. It 
happens that the present head masters of the English schools are 
themselves good scholars ; and I cannot understand that they are 
likely to have any difficulty in determining, especially with the 
aid of their colleagues, which book is, from time to time, the best. 
Only I would keep this last quite separate from the first ; and I 
would no more enforce the learning by heart the uses of the .sub- 
junctive mood upon a boy beginning Caesar, than I would oblige 
him to get up beforehand the article " consul" in the Diction- 
ary of Antiquities in order that whenever he came to the ex- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



16 

1 "o"' 00e 6T2 976 A 

pression he might fully understand at once the uicauii^ oi mat 

ancient office. 

I have now finished the remarks which I had to make. I 
hope I have said nothing which can give offence. I am aware 
that in some respects the opinions which I have enunciated are 
extreme, and that many who will agree in their general tenor 
will find something to dissent from in the arguments which I 
have used to support them. But I will again state my belief 
that some such views as those which I have put forward are 
held very widely by masters of the English Public Schools, and 
by scholars in other places, whose names are deservedly better 
known than mine. 

If it be so, I would suggest that such views ought to be taken 
into account. There is, I would urge, sufficient ground for a 
reconsideration of the question. At the least, any definite step 
may be postponed till public opinion shall have been able to 
declare itself. 

That public opinion has not done so as yet, is due to the 
privacy with which the matter has hitherto been conducted, and 
of which I do not complain. But now it would seem time to 
invite its fuller expression. That it should be consulted is most 
important. At a time when science is advancing so rapidly it 
is not too much to say that classical education is on its trial. 
Perhaps the Eeport of the Commissioners has given it a much 
longer lease of life. But that its decease should be unduly 
hastened will be less regretted, even by its admirers, if the sys- 
tem adopted in the proposed Latin Primer is to be presented to 
the nation as that upon which the intellect of the coming 
generation is to be trained. 



Westminster : Printed by Nichols and Sons, 25, Parliament Street. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



006 672 976 A 



